08-20-2013, 03:36 AM
Fresh brew, ancient recipe
Tuesday 20 August 2013 10:06AMAlecia Wood
[www.abc.net.au]
Home brewing has been with us literally for millennia, and now the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute is getting in on the trend. They've teamed up with a micro-brewery to hold their first ever beer tasting. The brew will be fresh, but the ancient recipe is drawn from a hymn to a Sumerian goddess scribed on a 4,000-year-old clay tablet.
Mesopotamia, the ancient region that lay between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that roughly corresponds to modern-day Iraq, has long been the focus of archaeological expeditions. Among artefacts that indicate the existence of a written language, urban architecture and the wheel, excavations have also uncovered a strong Mesopotamian beer-brewing and drinking culture.
We’re walking a tightrope here, because we don’t really know what their beers tasted like. certainly don’t talk about them tasting sour, but they do talk about them tasting sweet.
TATE PAULETTE, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
From 3200BC to about 1600BC, when writing appears, beer is already there in lots of documents,' says University of Chicago PhD candidate Tate Paulette, an archaeologist whose thesis explores grain storage practices in Mesopotamia. 'We know beer must have had a long history before that, probably thousands of years.'
Tuesday 20 August 2013 10:06AMAlecia Wood
[www.abc.net.au]
Home brewing has been with us literally for millennia, and now the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute is getting in on the trend. They've teamed up with a micro-brewery to hold their first ever beer tasting. The brew will be fresh, but the ancient recipe is drawn from a hymn to a Sumerian goddess scribed on a 4,000-year-old clay tablet.
Mesopotamia, the ancient region that lay between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that roughly corresponds to modern-day Iraq, has long been the focus of archaeological expeditions. Among artefacts that indicate the existence of a written language, urban architecture and the wheel, excavations have also uncovered a strong Mesopotamian beer-brewing and drinking culture.
We’re walking a tightrope here, because we don’t really know what their beers tasted like.
TATE PAULETTE, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
From 3200BC to about 1600BC, when writing appears, beer is already there in lots of documents,' says University of Chicago PhD candidate Tate Paulette, an archaeologist whose thesis explores grain storage practices in Mesopotamia. 'We know beer must have had a long history before that, probably thousands of years.'
08-20-2013, 04:00 AM
I believe that is the source of the name for the beer brand 'Ninkasi'.